By Ira Breskin - Veteran investment banker Brian Friedman, president, Jefferies Financial Group, recently explained the simple rules executives of publicly traded shipping firms should heed to attract and retain fickle Wall Street investors’ attention. His ground rules are brutal in their simplicity. First, market leaders must have scale, Friedman said. That means shipping … [Read more...]
Business of Shipping: Smooth Sailing Ahead for Jones Act Operators
By Ira Breskin (Business of Shipping) - It should be smooth sailing for the foreseeable future for operators of large Jones Act vessels, speakers said last week at the 32nd annual Marine Money Conference in New York. The placid market forecast assumes that the supply-demand balance will remain largely intact. That’s because there is a paucity of new tonnage---either being … [Read more...]
Business of Shipping – Nor-Shipping 2019
By Ira Breskin in Oslo, Norway - Executives from maritime industry service providers interviewed at the Nor-Shipping conference in Oslo last week universally promoted intelligently designed and targeted new offerings to the maritime industry. For example, classification society/consultancy DNV GL promoted its Veracity web-based portal that can display and analyze a myriad of … [Read more...]
Business of Shipping: Maritime Industry Technology Accelerators
By Ira Breskin - The staid maritime industry now boasts several technology accelerators, with more likely to follow. The accelerator name is self-effacing. These technology “hot houses” are designed to force feed promising start-up firms that offer the promise of highly-sought, cutting-edge, industry-specific software and hardware. Ironically, some of this technology may … [Read more...]
Business of Shipping: China’s Claims in South China Sea Could Impact Commercial Shipping
By Ira Breskin - The maritime territorial dispute between China and many of its neighbors, as well as the United States, has major negative, long-term policy implications for shipping, a leading academic says. China’s contention that it has sovereignty over a large swath of the South China Sea violates the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (which China has signed) and … [Read more...]